Use of Sapporo

[alt3rn1ty]

I love this ship. As a patrol ship protecting miners from Kha'ak its brilliant.

I have it modded with in game mods, Whirlygig for better turning and thrust, Nanotube for less Drag and Mass, Traction for increased Shield recharge rate and less recharge delay. So its quite fast with its travel drive, and all turrets have Expediter for better rotation/range/damage.

Put it on Repeat Orders, and then gave it "Attack all enemies" about five times to cover a large area regularly mined, which attracts loads of Kha'ak.
"Attack all enemies" on this ship, the area of coverage radius is larger than usual, so having multiples of this command on repeat covers a lot of the sector.

I'm finding I dont need anything else on patrol in this sector as its doing a marvellous job of swatting all the Kha'ak attacks away, leaving my miners in peace, as the Sapporo gets around all of the repeat orders quickly enough.

I'm going to have to topup the Barrage missiles at some point, but before I do that I'm going to see how it performs in the same role with just its modified turrets. Really like the sound of the barrage missiles firing .. duffduff duffduff duffduff

Thats my use for it anyway, it doesn't need any escorts in this role.

Only thing its not good at in the same role is picking up drops - I tried Repeat Orders to include a "Collect drops" after each "Attack all enemies", but the cargo drones take too much time recovering which lessens its effectiveness covering the whole sector, so now its just on Repeat orders Attack all enemies.

Edit : Reference the OP and it being hard to obtain - I just used a single Asgard, fully kitted out with Beams on all turrets with the Slasher mod for much better beam damage. First I located the Ravager, and the Asgard main weapon took that out in about 3 seconds. Waves of Kha'ak as you attack the Kha'ak installation were no problem, I just slowly edged it in there using the main weapon on the station modules while the beam turrets took out all the fighters. Once the station was deceased, the Kha'ak keep respawning in this area, so I positioned the Asgard sideways near the Sapporo as a shield to all attacks, so that all incoming spawns were again handled by the beams before they got near to the Sapporo, then got a Yasur to quickly fly in the other side of the Sapporo, teleported over to the Yasur, claimed the Sapporo and personally flew it out of the area while the Asgard was still swatting flies.

[Castigere]

Hi,

I wanted to know what you will use the sapporo for? As far as I can see, it seems a little ill equipped for any purpose. Just 8x m-Turrets, Not much Cargo capacity or Hangar bays...
And also pretty hard to obtain, so it also isn't an L-ship introduction (first L ship) for new players either.

I'm Not Sure how I should use that ship properly. What are your oppinions about that ship?

I found it fairly straightforward to obtain. Just bought a throwaway scout. Hit mists of Artemis, loiter with intent till destroyer is at least 10 clicks from Sapporo. Run at ship, Scout destroyed by fighters (for me about 2 clicks away). Event Horizon your way to the top of the hull (by the landing pad), claim ship, slowly take her out of sector, dropping laser towers till no more fighters on your tail. Shield regen is higher than all fighter damage, so no problem, just dont hit the gas. As to use, I use it for boarding (85 crew I think). Ive got maybe 30 crew and rest Marines. Boarding strength is usually north of 1100. I also keep the Xperimental and Xenon F on it, and use it as a flagship

[Caedes91]

Does the patch finally make the ship usable now, or is it still just some museum pice?

[chew-ie]

It is usable since day one.

[sabbede]

Hi,

I wanted to know what you will use the sapporo for? As far as I can see, it seems a little ill equipped for any purpose. Just 8x m-Turrets, Not much Cargo capacity or Hangar bays...
And also pretty hard to obtain, so it also isn't an L-ship introduction (first L ship) for new players either.

I'm Not Sure how I should use that ship properly. What are your oppinions about that ship?

I found it fairly straightforward to obtain. Just bought a throwaway scout. Hit mists of Artemis, loiter with intent till destroyer is at least 10 clicks from Sapporo. Run at ship, Scout destroyed by fighters (for me about 2 clicks away). Event Horizon your way to the top of the hull (by the landing pad), claim ship, slowly take her out of sector, dropping laser towers till no more fighters on your tail. Shield regen is higher than all fighter damage, so no problem, just dont hit the gas. As to use, I use it for boarding (85 crew I think). Ive got maybe 30 crew and rest Marines. Boarding strength is usually north of 1100. I also keep the Xperimental and Xenon F on it, and use it as a flagship

I found an easier, though possibly more time-consuming, approach. I parked my ship just far enough away to avoid attention and then flew the rest of the way in my suit.
You probably need Mk2 suit thrusters to make it in time. And SETA helps.

Then it was just a slow run to the gate as the fighters futilely buzzed around. Easy-peasy.

[Karvat]

Use of Sapporo, none, stands there as a wasted asset that could have been a variety addition to the limited set of choices of the shipyard.

[Thomas2052]

Pros:

With the new missile launchers, it's great fun. I like setting the camera to the target and launching a few barrage missiles to watch the fireworks.

Makes a really good early flagship, nimble and fast under player control. The boost lasts for ages, and takes it up to 300+ speed.

With 80km radar range, is a great patrol leader, as others have said.

Modded, it has a very good travel speed so can be a great daily runner still - the bridge is lovely, and spinning things!

Wishlist:

It doesn't have the damage output of an L destroyer, but it has the cost. I think of it more as a missile frigate (m7s in old games?). That could be easily changed.

If I could have one wish, let it have an M dock - maybe suspended under the long part where the missile launchers are (like a Gozanti Cruiser carries tie fighters in star wars). It's great having the L/M/S set from Timelines of old terran ships, but letting them dock as a package would be brilliant.

If I could have two wishes, more classes of missiles would be amazing - there are now light and heavy for M and S targets, but a super heavy type (think torpedo strength with cost and speed to match) would mean I could field an entire missile fleet!

Regards

[sabbede]

If I could have two wishes, more classes of missiles would be amazing - there are now light and heavy for M and S targets, but a super heavy type (think torpedo strength with cost and speed to match) would mean I could field an entire missile fleet!

Regards

I think the heavy missiles are intended for capitals and stations. At least that's how I used them, and they did a good job of it. It never occurred to me to use them against fighters, and the anti-fighter missiles were added after I started my current playthrough (where I'm out of missiles and cannot yet build more).

Now that I think of it, is the computer smart enough to select different missiles depending on the target?

[alt3rn1ty]

~ Now that I think of it, is the computer smart enough to select different missiles depending on the target?

I think the answer to that is no, or at least not that I have seen so far after equipping the ship with a couple hundred of each.
The community has also asked the question to Egosoft twice to my knowledge, but no answer yet.

It would be nice, I remember the MARS mod for X3 used to be able to swap weapons in slots that were relevant to the target.

[EGO_Aut]

I think the Sapporo is actual fine like it is.
AI did a good work against a pirate Behemoth E.
But maybe the pirates where drunk.

Here the video:

Spoiler

Show

https://youtu.be/irES6COMABA?si=nYh8XRsJsQC69vTY

[Caedes91]

With 80km radar range, is a great patrol leader, as others have said.

It's the first time I hear that a ship has 80km or are you using a mod?

[MutantDwarf]

The increased radar range was one of the 7.1 changes, if I remember right. Same with the new missiles it has.

[alt3rn1ty]

Aswell as the radar range being much bigger than usual, when you give the Sapporo an "Attack all enemies" (right click the map) the radius of that area is also much larger than usual so with multiple commands on repeat orders this ship covers a very big area.

I found its best to not give this ship any drones in this role, as they can get left quite far behind and then the ship has some long pauses waiting for them to catch up lessening its effeciency covering that large area.

This guy has your miners back when the Kha'ak pop in, just keep an eye on how many missiles it has left .
Although I think it would do fine against random Kha'ak attacks with just its turrets, especially if you fit them with Expediter.

[Sutopia]

It's way underpowered as a destroyer. It's somewhat like ray that serves as a fleet support, or rather, fleet commander since it has huge detection radius that is perfect for a fighter squad to attack with.
The barrage is way too expensive for its damage and not worth using at all. I would only consider using it if the barrage has at least doubled range. Heavy ones are too slow to catch up anything and even under closed loop it's basically worse torpedo; light ones can catch up with fighters but the damage isn't impressive and it can detonate prematurely. I cannot kill a khaak in a full 6x4 barrage feels off.

[oddgit]

I like to use them as a fleet leader in areas that have lots of khk activity, now that they have a very large radar range. I deploy them with a few katana, and let them wander around in areas my miners tend to gather.